MotoGP legend Rossi stays in WEC with Team WRT BMW for 2025

Motorcycle racing legend Valentino Rossi will return to the World Endurance Championship with the WRT BMW squad in 2025. 

The Italian’s second season in the LMGT3 class of the WEC has been confirmed along with his team-mates in the #46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO for the eight-race schedule incorporating the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Rossi will share the car with new BMW signing Kelvin van der Linde and Ahmad Al Harthy, with whom he was teamed during his maiden campaign. 

Van der Linde has replaced Maxime Martin, Rossi’s partner in WEC and GT World Challenge Europe since 2023, after his departure to Mercedes was announced in December. 

Confirmation of a second season in the WEC follows Rossi’s decision to slim down his racing programme for 2025. 

The 45-year-old suggested in the summer that he needed to make a choice between racing in WEC and the GTWCE, before hinting at the end of his 2024 campaign that a continuation at world championship level was most likely.

“Very happy to continue my experience in the WEC, as last year was a strong debut season,” said Rossi.  

“We had some good races including two podiums and we want to try to be stronger and faster. We will work hard together with BMW M Motorsport to improve our performance and be more competitive in every race.”

WRT’s second LMGT3 entry, #31, will be raced by the already-confirmed Augusto Farfus and Timur Boguslavskiy and Yasser Shahin. 

Boguslavskiy is moving over from the Auto Sport Promotion Lexus team, with which he contested three WEC rounds last year. 

The Russian was formerly a regular at the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the GTWCE with the French team, winning the Endurance Cup title in 2019 and 2023. 

Australian Shahin is switching over from the Manthey Porsche team with which he finished second in LMGT3 last year and won the class at Le Mans. 

His announcement follows the move of Sean Gelael and Darren Leung, Farfus’s team-mates last year, from WRT to Manthey for the new season.

#31 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3: Darren Leung, Sean Gelael, Augusto Farfus

Photo by: Andreas Beil

The #31 BMW will be entered under The Bend Team WRT banner in reference to the race track that Shahin developed, The Bend Motorsport Park, in South Australia.

BMW has also firmed up the IMSA SportsCar Championship line-ups for M4s raced by factory drivers ahead of the season-opening Daytona 24 Hours on 25-26 January.

Dan Harper and Max Hesse will a race GT Daytona Pro entry for Paul Miller Racing and will be supported by Farfus and Jesse Krohn at the IMSA Endurance Cup rounds. 

Neil Verhagen, who graduated like Harper and Hesse from BMW’s revived junior scheme, will share a second Miller Pro entry with Madison Snow, while Van der Linde and Connor De Phillippi will join them for endurance programmes.

Rob Foley, who has been contracted to BMW since 2023, will share a regular GTD class entry run by Turner Motorsport in a full North American campaign with Patrick Gallagher and will be joined for the enduros by Jake Walker and at Daytona by Jens Klingmann.